Unsafe at Any Time

The chapter “Unsafe at Any Time” examines Generation Disaster’s perceptions of safety, risk, fairness, and other consequences of their early environment, and it explores whether these concerns relate to the high rates of anxiety and depression reported by this generation relative to other cohorts. It also describes the methodological challenges that are inherent in trying to make valid comparisons to previous ages, given all of the dramatic societal changes of the past few decades, and the chapter discusses the impact of the belittling descriptions of this cohort by elders as being overly sensitive or generally inferior to previous generations, when in reality their often cautious worldview may be an adaptive response to a genuinely more dangerous world.